All posts tagged ‘generation 1’

As I sat with my young son on the couch watching the “plot” of our first episode of the new Transformers: Animated series unfold, I couldn’t help but state the obvious.

“This is pretty freakin’ lame,” I said.

He simply smiled and pointed out a Dinobot. He’s three. Dinosaurs are an easy sell. As are robots. Particularly when they’re brightly colored.

Pat Benatar sang that hell is for children, and so, I say, are poorly conceived re-imaginings of classic toy franchises.

That’s not to say that even our beloved Transformers: Generation 1 was without fault. In fact, far from it. Each iteration of the titular “Robots in Disguise” has seen its share of missteps. Even after suspending our disbelief to allow for talking androids that turn into cars, the Transformers universe still managed to throw us some unapologetic curves, some wholly ill-conceived characters.

Don’t believe it? Allow me to elucidate.

Cosmos (Transformers: Gen 1)
In a rush to head off some sort of high-tech gas crisis, the Autobots crash landed on prehistoric Earth. After being reawakened some 4 million years later by a volcanic eruption, the indestructible TRS-80 that served as their heap’s intergalactic GPS chose alternate forms for these space robots to assume so as to blend in with contemporary Earth machines. And yet somehow Cosmos ended up transforming into a flying saucer. ‘Cause, y’know, that’s totally inconspicuous.

Waspinator (Beast Wars)
The mid ’90s saw a Transformers relaunch of a different kind. The Beast Wars series recast Autobots and Decepticons as the more organic Maximals and Predacons. Moreover, it saw the introduction of Waspinator, the robot equivalent of South Park‘s Kenny McCormick. He existed simply to be blown up, maimed, crushed, mutilated, and occasionally possessed. It’s hard out there for a quasi-literate bug-machine.